New York's Uptown Downtown subway screening series continues this week with a showings of two pithy and pertinent political documentaries, one about the quintessential New York politico who's always been a masterful storyteller with a particularly strong on scene personal presence, and the other about a Persian master storyteller whose compelling narrative films made him a political target in Iran.

See Koch, filmmaker Neil Barskey's entertaining and comprehensive biopic and tribute film about NYC's former Mayor Ed, playing at the IFC Center in Koch's own home base neighborhood of Greenwich Village on January 29.

Then, take the A Train to Harlem for the January 30 and 31 Maysles Cinema's screenings of Jafar Panahi's brilliant and brave autobiographical documentary This Is Not A Film, shot within confines of the Tehran apartment where he has been under house arrest, and in defiance of a gag order that prohibits him from making films or talking to the press for twenty years.

Both films are must sees. To read my reviews, click on the films' highlighted titles.